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My first memories of Ashes cricket were not from watching but from listening on the wireless to the efforts of Jim Laker in 1956. Of course, we all know of that famous match when he took 19 wickets, and subsequently I have studied the fields that were set. It was quite an extraordinary way that Australia played, and you are talking about uncovered pitches in those days, obviously.
Without doubt England exploited the dampness superbly, yet it is extraordinary that one chap in any era could get 19 wickets. Tony Lock, the left-arm spinner, would have been apoplectic that he ended up with just one in those conditions. They were a fine spin double act Laker and Lock even if they weren’t necessarily bosom buddies away from cricket.
To see how Laker tried to get his wickets was quite an eye-opener. Alan Oakman was stood like a predator at leg slip, a position which has really gone out of the modern game, and the spin that Laker got combined with the accuracy made it a really attacking position from which to snare batsmen.
I came to know Jim because he was a commentator on the BBC’s television coverage of the Sunday League alongside Peter Walker. Frank Bough was also around at that time, and they were a nice little commentary team. Jim also happened to be a really good friend of Jack Simmons. They were both off-spinners of course and Jack was one of the most gregarious fellows you could meet. The pair of them used to talk about the art of off-spin and other things for hours.
But it was actually Ray Illingworth, of the players I played with and against, that reminded me of most of Jim in that when he bowled he stood nice and tall in delivery. Accuracy was your main ally in the days of uncovered wickets because if you kept things tight the natural variation in a pitch would sometimes reward you by allowing the ball to spit this way or that.
I never tire of watching the cine reel of that 1956 performance at Old Trafford. It looks pretty clear to me that the Australians had no real idea of how to play that type of gripping off-spin where the ball does something off the pitch, off a decent length.
Fielders were stood all around, circling for their chance of an inside edge or a false defensive shot. One of the things that makes me chuckle from watching that back, though, is that a wicket did not encourage French kisses or gropes of each other’s backsides; it was just a simple pat on the back or a nod of approval with your head. Sometimes if players got really carried away they might give each other a handshake.
But there was certainly no going down on your hands and knees kissing the turf, beating the badge on your chest or tonguing short-leg’s helmet. There were no advertising logos to point towards the cameras either. The only name on any of your clothing might have been the nametag sewn into your shirt by your wife or mother. The most extravagant Laker seemed to get was to smile, and hitch up his pants in that 1950s fashion, as if to say he was ready for business.
It was really peculiar to England that the regulations meant you would play on uncovered pitches. Teams would come over and find it extremely difficult whereas an English player would develop a technique on these uncovered surfaces. Through the middle of the 20th century there was a fashion for fast-medium bowlers who were deadly accurate and hit the seam. Now, as a batsman that meant you had to play at most deliveries and if you weren’t used to it jagging this way and that you were in danger of being dismissed.
But it all came about from England losing the first Test at Lord’s, a match that the Australian fast bowler Keith Miller dominated. England’s response was telling. Out went their own attack spearhead Frank Tyson, as attention turned to spin. With Lock and Laker together it was an obvious tactic. Some of the Australian party believed it was a tactic that was tantamount to cheating. But I don’t see how preparing pitches to suit your own purpose can be called that. With the bilateral nature of Test cricket it seems eminently sensible to make use of any home advantage going.
We have reflected on Bradman’s freakish numbers but two Laker statistics from ’56 will stand the test of time, I am sure. To claim 19 wickets in one game, and 46 in an Ashes series is astonishing. It is fair to say that numerically at least Laker contributed more than any other Englishman to victory over Australia. Yet, in losing down under two-and-a-half years later, the urn was relinquished once more and stayed in the land of the didgeridoo for the entire 1960s.
It might have been different, according to good old Fiery Fred. I’ll let two classic pieces of sledgehammer wit tell the story. England led the 1962–63 series, you see, courtesy of Trueman’s eight wickets at the MCG. But two crucial slip catches went down. The first, by the Rev David Shepherd, was greeted by Trueman exclaiming: ‘Kid yourself it’s a Sunday, Rev, and put your hands together.’ The next, by Colin Cowdrey, came with an apology to the bowler: ‘Sorry, Fred, I should have kept my legs together.’ To which, the great man replied: ‘No, but your mother should have.’
Under Ted Dexter’s captaincy, England drew more than Rolf Harris at his marker-pen doodling best, but in 1964 their most significant result was a defeat at Headingley that put Australia ahead. Disagreement on the best tactical policy in the field led to Australia’s Peter Burge swashbuckling his team home with a big hundred.
The match I remember most clearly, though, is the fourth Test at Old Trafford that followed. Australia captain Bobby Simpson scored his maiden Test hundred, a whopping 311 to be exact, and the stand-out aspect from an England perspective was the fact that they opted to leave Trueman out on a featherbed, despite trailing with two matches remaining. It was a result of the Dexter–Trueman bust-up in Leeds, and meant they gave debuts to Fred Rumsey and Tom Cartwright.
As Simpson just batted and batted it was bleedingly obvious that they had come up with the wrong team. I guess the Simpson innings stuck in my mind both because it was at Old Trafford and also because he was the professional at my club Accrington.
What a fabulous cricketer Simpson was: a more than handy leg-spinner and one of the best slip catchers not just in Ashes tussles but that the world has ever seen. However, his main forte was as an opening batsman.
Later in life he became such an influence as a coach. He followed me in the role at Lancashire although he didn’t stick around very long. He had a lengthy association with the area, from the time that he played in the leagues and coached us youngsters, and we had exchanged views on a few things when he had been over in the past as coach of Australia. It was an unbelievable job he did from 1986 to 1996. When he took over, Australia had not won a Test series for three years, and by the time he had finished they were celebrating four consecutive Ashes victories and a place in the final of the 1996 World Cup.
It was during the 1991 season that he got in touch to inquire about another Australian who also played for our dear Accrington. One Shane Warne.
‘How’s young Warne going?’ he asked.
‘He’s not doing great, if I’m honest,’ I told him.
‘I thought he must be pissin’ ’em out,’ Bob said.
‘Well, no he’s not.’
‘Right, get him to ring me. I’ll tell him where to bowl.’
These days it is a privilege to sit in a commentary box next to Warne. Earlier connections in my career, meanwhile, take me right back to the 1930s through Gubby Allen, one of the central figures in the Bodyline fiasco, and a man who ran English cricket for a long time. He was Gubby to his very best friends but to most people he was most definitely Mr Allen. You can probably tell which camp I was in as an aspiring international player.
Having been called up in 1974 against India, my debut was at Lord’s, and so I got in early the day before the match, and was wearing my pride and joy. Get this: the pride and joy of which I speak was a snazzy yellow leather jacket. I thought I was a right bobby dazzler as I turned up in this clobber, and displaying typical keenness of the new boy I was first in. I put my bag down and there was this chap sat on the table. I had no idea who he was. ‘Alright,’ I greeted him. ‘How do?’
‘Hullo,’ came the rather authoritative reply.
‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ I resumed, trying to break an uncomfortable silence, my tactic being to work out who the heck this bloke was, and what he was doing in the England dressing room, if I kept talking. ‘See you decided to get here nice and early too.’
There was not much coming back from him at all, and what went through my mind was that this bloke had somehow wandered in uninvited. So I plucked up a bit of courage and warned: ‘Listen, pal. I don’t know if you realise this but you are sat in the England dressing room and they will all be coming up in a minute or two.’
‘You’ve no idea who I am, have you?’ he responded.
‘No, can’t say I have, sorry.’
‘My name is Gubby. It’s Gubby Allen.’
‘How do you do?’ I said, with a smile, which masked the fact that I remained none the wiser.
It took my more established team-mates to put me in the picture, and thankfully, he took my ignorance brilliantly. At night after play we would all be invited into the MCC committee room for a drink.
‘I believe you have been told who I am now,’ he said.
‘Er, yes,’ I answered rather sheepishly.
I was always careful to mind my manners around Gubby. He had that effect on you, which is quite a contrast to how one behaved around Alec Bedser, who was chairman of selectors at the time. Clocking me in my yellow jacket that week, he put me at ease with the blunt inquiry: ‘What the f***’s that you’ve got on?’
I just couldn’t see past this yellow fashion accessory being the dog’s doodahs. It had been purchased from a bespoke gents’ outfitters in Rawtenstall called Nobbutlads. Well, that’s how it was hyphenated in local speak, as it stood for Nowt But Lads.
There was no girls’ stuff on sale there, although being shiny yellow with these massive lapels I am sure a lass could get away with wearing something similar in 2013. Looking back it was quite hideous. But at the time I thought it was the business.
These days if you get picked for England, you turn up in the full suit for a Test match. Back then you were only kitted out afterwards, hence my turning up looking like a roadie for the Bay City Rollers. I was yet to receive my England jacket or indeed my MCC piping blazer that I would be sporting that following winter.
The 1970–71 Ashes series, the one which preceded my one and only tour as an England player, was a feisty affair and not just between the two teams. There was plenty of other niggle about too, and Ray Illingworth’s men had broken relationships with a member of officialdom as well as some of the people that populated the stands.
All hell almost literally broke loose when a John Snow bouncer collided into Terry Jenner and knocked him senseless. The treatment given to one of their tail-enders incensed the Sydney crowd, who seemed keen on exacting their own retribution by rioting.
The umpire Lou Rowan certainly took exception to the short-pitched stuff sent down by Snow, whose staple argument on the matter during that series was that his deliveries were aimed at the armpit of the batsman and not at the head, and were therefore not technically bouncers at all. On one occasion when the subject matter came up, Rowan is said to have argued: ‘Well, somebody’s bowling them from this end and it’s not me.’
Snow saw it his job to rough up opposing batsman. For him, it went with the territory as England’s new-ball enforcer, and getting struck was just an occupational hazard for top-order batsmen. His intention was to spread uncertainty and apprehension in the Australian ranks and a haul of 31 wickets that series suggests he succeeded.
But his aggressive approach got this Mr Rowan interested throughout a niggly series and particularly when Jenner was peppered with rib-ticklers after coming in with Australia seven wickets down in the final Test at the SCG. When Jenner tried to wriggle out of the flight path of the third his misjudgement on length cost him dear and witnessed the ball being ‘headed’ into the covers.
It was not until a bloody Jenner had been escorted from the field, and Snow was preparing to send down his next delivery, that Rowan told him: ‘That’s a first warning.’
Such decisions are pretty arbitrary ones and you have to rely on the umpire’s discretion. However, Snow was not the kind of man to take anything lying down and from what I knew of him was unlikely to merely accept a judgement without prior discussion. His argument as things got a little heated with the local official was that the delivery in question had been the first genuine bouncer he had sent down that over.
Unsurprisingly, Ray Illingworth, his captain, immediately offered his support. He was a very fine leader, Ray, and his teams would always know they had his full backing. As they stood arguing the toss, the first beer cans were lugged onto the field at the other end of the ground. And by the time the over was completed, it looked like the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve party had been going on at fine-leg.
And when Snow clasped his hat and sauntered off to the boundary along from that famous Sydney mound, the blood of the locals had not cooled. As I say, John was not a man to dodge confrontation, although it would take a far braver man than me to give it a touch of the Liam Gallaghers at that point. His ‘come on, then’ gestures were taken up by one have-a-go-zero who leapt the fence and grabbed him by the collar. Snow’s remonstrations with this drunken chap amounted to him asking quite matter-of-factly what the hell he was doing. But it was the signal for the boozers behind him to unleash their tinnies and bottles once more.
Illingworth, again as befitted his position as leader, was first on the scene and ushered Snow away, and the rest of the England team off the field. Others might have questioned his actions – ‘the game must go on’ and all that – but he was a man of principle, so the players were all holed up in the away dressing room when Rowan entered to inquire: ‘What’s going on, Mr Illingworth? Is this team coming back onto the field or have you chosen to forfeit the match?’
With the Ashes in England’s possession all bar the shouting it was a bit Hobson’s Choice, really, wasn’t it? Get back out there or hand Australia a drawn series. Illingworth insisted that a few minutes were given for things to calm down and so, with the ground swept of its debris, it was on with the show.
England left with smiles on their faces in relation to the series result but with scowls for Rowan, who did not give a single lbw against Australia in the series, a statistic that enraged the visiting players, including Illy.
This Rowan episode would have been one of the many instances that combined to move us towards neutral umpires in international cricket. Sure, the process of two home umpires officiating went on for another 20-odd years but in the end something had to give. Too often around the world touring teams would feel that they were playing against 13. For example, there was the popular theory that Javed Miandad had never been given out lbw in Pakistan. Now, as statistics go, that’s quite extraordinary, and not strictly true. The facts were that it was not until the 10th year of him playing home Tests that he was first given out in that manner.
History suggests that Rowan was taken aback by Illy’s attitude but if you are dealing with Raymond Illingworth you would simply not get the stiff upper lip that an Australian official might expect from an England captain. Indeed, Mr David Clark, the tour manager on that trip, expected the same thing – to be British about it and get on in the face of provocation. Earlier in the trip Clark had expressed his dislike of drawn matches and offered the suggestion that he would prefer to witness a 3–1 Australia victory than to see it end in stalemate.
It is fair to say that Clark’s views and mine are diametrically opposed. Ray was exactly the same as me in his attitude and I am pretty sure I would have replicated every single one of his actions had I found myself in his position. In my time as England coach I would never do that stiff upper lip thing either, preferring to stick up for those under my charge, and remained desperately keen to win. During my England tenure, my attitude was always: ‘You should never have appointed me if that was what you wanted.’ I am just not that sort of bloke. If someone wronged me I would come back hard at them; it’s the way I have always been, and not just on the cricket field.
Without doubt, that is how Illy has always been too. He will play hard and fair but if he is crossed then watch out because he will take matters into his own hands. There were distinct parallels to be drawn between Illingworth and Jardine, actually, as captains, and I would argue that there is a correlation that they were seen to be sticking up for their team out in the middle, taking the flak on behalf of the group, and that their teams were successful out there.
It needs strong leadership and a single-mindedness to win an away series in such a demanding and hostile environment, and neither bloke would take a backward step. These guys revelled in being in charge and weren’t about to let anyone else boss their teams around. In acting in this way they were showing their own individual characters, and neither would have found it easy to hide that in any case. The one thing that neither would accept was being pushed around. They had to be seen to be leading their players, not just the bloke who had an asterisk by his name in the score book.
For years there was always a suspicion that whatever country you were in the appointed officials would favour the home team. Neutral umpires were necessary for the good of the global game but I believe we have now come full circle. I sit on the ICC panel that selects the officials for the elite level of the game and because of the way they are monitored centrally I am of the opinion that we can go back to home umpires standing in Test matches. Umpires across the globe are simply miles better and are more accountable for their decisions because of the presence of so much media coverage. Any mistakes are highlighted all around the world, and any real howlers would be struck down by the Decision Review System in most instances.
In the 1974–75 series there was a lovely chap called Tom Brooks umpiring. Jeff Thomson was a big no-ball merchant. He sent down loads of them, not that many of them were called as such, so when stood at the non-striker’s end while batting we would monitor where he was landing. Of course, he was regularly landing over the line with his front foot but seldom was he called.
This situation had been the subject of debate in our dressing room and we decided that it should be a duty when out batting to emphasise his landing position to the man in the white coat. It entailed us drawing the line with our boots, making it highly visible, or running our bats down the crease to encourage attention being drawn to the area. The odd word didn’t go amiss, either. ‘Oh, he’s close, really close, don’t you think?’
You couldn’t challenge the umpire back then, in contrast to the modern day when you can go right up to them and have a bit of a go. No, in ours it had to be a lot more subtle. Tom was a lovely bloke and he used to say in response: ‘You guys play to this front foot rule so we tend to be a bit stricter with your lot.’ It had always been a back foot rule before that, of course, and it was almost as if we were being punished for the rule change.
Conflict these days is dealt with a lot differently, and situations like Illy’s England found themselves in would get nowhere near the levels of antagonism with the current procedures in place. Any grievances are recorded, and written down or emailed, considered by match referees, and then even higher up the ICC chain of authority if necessary. This diplomatic mechanism was something that those teams could have done with but it was still light years away.
Such was the disharmony that existed between John Snow in particular and the Australian public, that year, though, that one might have presumed he was kept away from the Test squad in 1974–75 for his own safety. There was a certain justification for branding him public enemy number one down under for his part in the victory there four years earlier.
So when our bristly, fiercely competitive villain turned up to do some television commentary during our tour, public enemy number one became a target for his adversaries from the stands once more. During the Test match at Perth, some of the local punters were so incensed by his presence that they literally tried to tear the scaffolding down to get to him. The gestures they made towards him suggested they wanted to shake him warmly – not by the hand, but by the throat. Put it this way, Snowy didn’t look overly eager to clamber down to check out the theory that he was a wanted man.
My personal experience of the crowds down under was that the banter that flew about was mainly of a good-hearted nature. The infamous Bay 13 at the MCG was marvellous, actually, although not necessarily if you were the one posted in front of it on the boundary edge as Deadly Derek Underwood was on one occasion. It didn’t last long, though, as he was soon protesting about his placement. ‘I can’t stand down there any longer,’ he exclaimed. ‘I really can’t.’
Typically of the man, Tony Greig said he would go down there and stand up to it instead. It was a ritual for the Bay 13 lot to start throwing things at the fielders, and they didn’t need a gallon on board to provide them with Dutch courage. Oh no, this lot could be loutish when stone cold sober. They just had to be in the mood for mischief, and if they were, and you were in range, then trouble was on the cards.
The bombardment normally began with lumps of ice. More often than not it went from single ice cubes, to handfuls of ice, finishing with the final assault of the whole esky. Now Greigy was not a man to back away from a challenge or at a point of confrontation, so he naturally started lugging these frozen missiles back with interest.
There was plenty of entertainment on offer aside from the cricket when you stepped into an Australian cricket ground in the 1970s. There was no Barmy Army around back then to amuse you with their songs, but this Australian lot didn’t need any rivals to spar with because they used to find enough enjoyment in fighting amongst themselves. During the 1974–75 tour we got friendly with the stadium control police, whose radio room was adjacent to our dressing rooms.
So during our innings, we used to mill around in there, watch their surveillance, and listen to their officers reporting back on any shenanigans in the stands. It used to kick off regularly throughout a day’s play, not just once or twice, and not just play stuff either. I am talking proper fights. Just for the sake of it, blokes used to throw things at each other, and it only took someone to react and all hell broke loose.
Remember those crowds were 95% Australian, so they weren’t being wound up by Poms. Australians are aggressive people by nature and sometimes they just like to scrap. Watching the surveillance gave us a rare chance at seeing the Aussies lose at something that winter.
On the subject of crowd abuse, I suffered some minor incidents during my career, and tended not to react despite provocation. My general attitude was that they were looking for a rise out of you, and therefore refraining from a reaction would nip their game in the bud. Coming back with a quip only extended an unwanted interaction.
But the one time I did react was when I was struck on the back of the neck by a lump of cheese as I fielded on the boundary. Bending down, I scooped it up and held it between my fingers, looking at it incredulously. ‘That’s not very mature,’ I said.
Sometimes the friction on the boundary edge is not one created by the public but the players with their behaviour. When Colin Croft was our overseas player at Lancashire we received several complaints from those situated in the Lady Subscribers’ Stand of a rather disconcerting habit he had.
Nothing out of the ordinary, really, at least as far as fast bowlers go, but nevertheless something that upset the predominantly female spectators at fine leg. Between bowling overs, Colin would regain his breath in the deep and clear his pipes further by blowing his nose onto the grass without the use of a handkerchief.
Subsequently, as captain of the club, I was asked into a meeting to discuss the problem and find a suitable solution. You won’t believe the one that we came up with – Colin switched from fine leg to third man, where his nasal ritual could be carried out in front of the popular side of the ground!
Chapter 2 (#u54457960-0614-5909-af80-f470d9478ede)
Playing in the Ashes would represent the pinnacle of any England cricketer’s career and the opportunity to scale it came bang smack in the middle of mine. Nine years after my debut; and nine years before I retired.
My journey to the very peak of what English cricket has to offer began with a County Championship match on 12 June 1965, against Middlesex at Old Trafford, and has given me reason to chuckle every time I’ve heard the Half Man Half Biscuit song ‘F***in’ ’ell It’s Fred Titmus’ since. It’s probably what I subconsciously thought at the start of every over he bowled to me in my maiden first-class innings.
Some late changes were made to the Lancashire team for that match, and an 18-year-old Lloyd, D, was one of the three call-ups, as much for a couple of impressive displays as a left-arm spinner in Second XI cricket at the start of that season as any ability I had shown with the willow in hand.
I arrived at the crease on the opening day with the scoreboard reading 140 for five, and although I failed to shift the ‘0’ displayed under the number seven slot, I spent an age trying. So much so that I took a salt tablet for cramp before I was dismissed.
My lunging forward to counter Titmus’s off-spin had taken its toll on my tense muscles, you see, because as a young player I was simply following advice from a more experienced colleague in Geoff Pullar. I was grateful for his input, too, as I sat waiting to go out to bat. Geoff’s instructions were to get well forward but to make sure my bat was out in front of the pad to minimise the chance of an inside edge ricocheting up into the air for the preying close fielders. It was a practice I carried through faithfully, but good old Fred got me in the end, and claimed a further eight wickets besides during my debut match.
As starts to professional careers go, mine was fairly barren. Titmus bowled me in the first innings, and I was caught behind off the other spinner Don Bick for another blob in the second. In between, although I claimed a couple of wickets, I dropped nightwatchman Bick, who went on to score 55 and help Middlesex to a useful 77-run lead. After a pair, a costly miss like that in the field, and a modest start to my career with the ball, things could only get better, I suppose.
But while I might not have started as I meant to go on, I certainly finished strongly. To be honest, I had a fun-filled playing career, but it would be untrue to claim I loved every minute of it. Towards the end I lost the enjoyment of turning up for work, a trait that I previously took to be inherent.
It didn’t help my batting that my eyes were no longer what they used to be, and if only I had gone to the optician’s sooner to address a natural deterioration, I might have scored a few more runs in the couple of years when my enthusiasm for cricket waned. I knew I was not seeing the ball well enough either when batting or in the field, and as soon as I got a prescription things improved markedly. So much so that my tally for the summer of 1982 touched upon the 2,000-run mark in all competitions.
But a recurrence of the neck injury that was to rule me out of the final Ashes Test in 1974–75 hastened the end for me the following season. I missed half of it recuperating from its debilitating effects and by the time I did return the club had unearthed some exciting young talents to fill the void.
Amongst them was the swashbuckling Neil Fairbrother, whose performances persuaded me that the club no longer required my services. I notified them of my intention to retire well before the end of the campaign. Somewhat surprisingly, it did not dissuade them from picking me, however, and in contrast to my spluttering start, I went out with a real bang.
My final Lancashire appearance, at Wantage Road, Northampton, saw me open the batting with another left-hander, Graeme Fowler. We were of different generations but both of us hailed from Accrington, and we both hit hundreds in a drawn match with Northamptonshire. It was the perfect time to say goodbye.
Like all good stories, this career of mine had a happy ending, and there was ultimate contentment in the middle too when I was informed that I would be representing my country abroad. Not just anywhere, either.
When I was called up for my maiden England tour, in late August 1974, it is fair to say that I had limited travel experience behind me. I had never been out of Britain for a start, and the most exotic place I had visited on any type of excursion was North Wales. My mum and dad used to favour the Welsh coastline as the destination for our summer holidays, and we would always stay in one Methodist guest house or other. Firstly, because they were cheap and we were far from flush with cash. Secondly, because it gave my dad a chance to sing; one of his passions in life was singing.
The correspondence I had been waiting for to inform me of my selection in the 16-man party to tour Australia and New Zealand arrived while I was playing in a County Championship match for Lancashire against Nottinghamshire. It was in the form of an official letter from the Test and County Cricket Board, penned by Donald Carr. It was a bit like receiving a letter from the Queen: ‘You have been selected to represent England on the MCC tour of Australia … blah de blah de blah …’ In cricket terms it was akin to the royal seal of approval. After I’d confirmed my intention to travel – the letter asked whether I would like to go, and so I had to reply with something enthusiastic like ‘Yeah, I’m up for that!’ – the next thing required of me was to secure a passport. This was an opportunity to take part in the greatest series of them all for an England cricketer: the Ashes.
In those days you were given all your paraphernalia in one leather cricket bag: your England tour blazer, your MCC cap and sweater, and your shirts and trousers all tucked inside. There was no coloured clothing back then, of course, as one-day cricket in its infancy was played in whites, and there was no need for the Velcro pouch on the side to store your Oakleys, either.
However, some kind of goggles would have been pretty useful as it turned out, when we boarded our jumbo jet down under. A Qantas Airlines long-haul flight was quite something in the 1970s. Now, as a novice traveller in his mid-20s I confess I was a little bit wide-eyed. Those eyes were soon narrowing, mind, thanks to the tendency for folk to indulge in their filthy habits. These days it is easy to forget what it was like back then, whenever you travelled on an aeroplane. People would be lighting up their cigarettes all around you, so that when you sat down it was reminiscent of when the lights get switched on for the first time down the front at Blackpool. They would spark up the minute they’d parked their backsides and chain-smoke for the entire journey. Yes, the full 27 hours! Once onboard you couldn’t see a bloody thing; it was like being sat in thick fog for a day.
Oh, did I forget to mention that contrary to the no-expense spared experience that our modern England Test cricketers have laid on for them – the reclining beds, personal gadgets and click-your-fingers waitress service – we were shoved at the back of the big bird to join in the economy chorus of coughing and wheezing? By the end of it we would have made Adele’s voice sound like Shane MacGowan’s.
It was comparable to being stood outside the front doors of a pub these days. Unfortunately, being up at 30,000 feet, we didn’t have a Hesketh Tavern or a Haworth Arms to dive into for some fresh air. One of my pet hates is that – smokers loitering outside boozers, gobbing between drags on their fags. Never really understood where they’re coming from, smokers. Partly due to the fact that I suffered from asthma as a kid, and therefore never felt inclined to try a cigarette, I suppose. I know some of you will be taking a drag as you’re reading this and may find me a bit of a stick in the mud, but please allow a bloke his prejudices in the privacy of his own pages. In my estimation, it’s a filthy habit and I probably couldn’t afford to indulge in it either with the price of a packet of fags these days. Actually, why not go the whole hog on this? They should charge £50 per packet, of course. Then we could all pay less tax.
Anyway, I digress. So here we were, jetting off to represent our country, an international sports team, struggling for breath before take-off. Now take-off was an experience in itself for a flight virgin. Only once previously had I entered an aircraft and that was a sightseeing flight around the Blackpool Tower as a nipper. Never having been up properly before, I sat there considering how on earth we were going to manage it when next thing, this big bird set off like the clappers, and I got my answer. Like anything when you’re trying it for the first time, it took some getting used to, and I just about had when we stopped off at Dusseldorf, Germany, to take some wood on board.
Peering through the smoke rings, and out of the window at healthier-looking clouds than hung around our beaks, I was spellbound by the whole experience, and almost delusional by the time we finally touched down. So imagine how I felt when they told me we had landed in ‘Darwen’. ‘Just down the road from me that, just beyond Blackburn,’ I thought, ‘and it’s taken me more than a day to get here.’ Fancy spending all that time to get a few miles down the road.
Rumour has it that Yorkshire used to do something similar for every pre-season tour during the 1960s – they’d set off from Leeds–Bradford Airport, get up to about 20,000 feet, U-turn just south of Sheffield, circle the region a few times to look down upon famous landmarks such as the white horse at Kilburn and arrive back in Leeds within the half-hour. ‘Because if it’s not in Yorkshire, it’s not worth bloody going,’ they used to say.
Goodness knows why Darwin in the Northern Territory was our first port of call but this was my first disembarkation down under. ‘Cor blimey, these engines don’t half get hot, do they?’ I said as we clambered down onto the tarmac. It took seasoned traveller John Edrich to put me right: ‘That heat you can feel’s not the engines, you pillock, it’s this bloody place!’ You see, I was a bit wet behind the ears as a tourist and unaccustomed to anything other than cloud and mizzle for the first 18 years of my life, so the temperature was severe enough to really take me aback.
The previous England team that had travelled to Australia in 1970–71, under the captaincy of Ray Illingworth, had returned victorious, of course, one of the great (and rare) wins for an England team down under. John Snow was a key figure in that victory, as we know, but subsequently came under something of a cloud, and was not in our party. Another figure missing was Geoff Boycott, and it was his absence to which I owed my chance at international level.
Boycs had not been selected the previous summer, and although there were rumours surrounding his omission I never knew the official reason why. There were all kinds of suggestions made, conjecture in the newspapers that he had been dropped, other reports that he was preoccupied with the organisation of his benefit, but I never knew the truth, and why would I want to know? There was even persistent talk of him falling out with the then captain Mike Denness but I was not in a position to dwell on such matters. What interested me was doing well for England, having been selected as his direct replacement as opening batsman.
As far as I was concerned, he was just out of the reckoning, I had been picked, given the chance to fulfil a dream and play for my country, and everything else went over my head. I was concentrating on the business of scoring runs to better myself, focusing on that red, spherical leather object being hurled down at me from 22 yards – not analysing the personality clashes, or the torment he surprisingly suffered at the hands of the innocuous-looking swing bowler Solkar at the start of that series against India, that may have played some part in providing the initial opportunity.
